On day 1 (or 2, depending on how you count), President Obama took action on a few items that were regularly highlighted in his campaign rhetoric: Guantanamo, lobbying, and open government. He also made a decision that’s responsive to the times: freezing the pay of top White House employees.
All of the orders send positive messages to the people who supported the president in the campaign. He moved swiftly to carry out actions they voted for. Whether they’ll have any practical effect is less certain.
President Obama’s decision to freeze all Guantanamo prosecutions for 120 days to review each case allowed him to take action without really having to take action. Today may be different. The Washington Post reports that Obama today will issue an order for the prison to be closed within a year, which will begin a process of frantic review and negotiation with countries around the world who want as little to do with the people held at Guantanamo as we do. I suspect the Administration is already figuring out that the Bush Administration was no more enamored of Guantanamo than anyone else – they just recognized that it was a necessary solution to an immediate problem.
The president’s order setting new rules for lobbyists entering the White House and proscribing lobbying efforts by former Administration officials is more bark than bite. Rules already limit the issues on which former employees can consult with the government. And, more to the point, the choicest lobbying spots go to people with Congressional contacts, not necessarily Executive contacts.
But the strangest thing about the new rules is that I seem to recall candidate Obama saying that lobbyists wouldn’t be allowed to work in his White House at all. I guess the new Administration has realized that it’s hard to staff a White House if you exclude people who have lobbied Congress on the very issues you now plan to lobby Congress on.
The new guidelines for public disclosure of information may be a real break with the past. Time will tell. It’s hard for me to judge how difficult it was to get information from the government – anytime I’ve needed to find something I have.
The sticking points will come in two places: national security (for obvious reasons) and in-process meetings or working groups. Will the Obama team want its internal deliberations open to public scrutiny as they’re happening? That could make it tough to keep the process moving in a straight line leading to a conclusion – especially if an outside organization sees fit to sue the Administration (and the Obama team will soon find, if they haven’t already, that many people will want to sue them, for fouls both minor and imagined).
The limit on White House pay is a signal to the country that Rome won’t fiddle while stocks burn. The practical effect is nil because the people who will receive these “frozen” salaries weren’t in their current jobs last year. What the pay freeze does is ensure that top Obama White House officials earn the same salary as top Bush White House officials (anywhere from $100,000 a year to about $170,000 a year). With inflation near zero and job losses all around, it’s a smart and easy sacrifice for the White House staff to make.
Whatever their practical effects, these first-day orders send a message to the president’s supporters and other Americans who want evidence that the government is different. It now is. Will it matter?
